Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1887-04-06
LAND AND B TALK.

c "SSA APCu onO 0uOJCCV vi AduU duO
Labor" Mr.. George is a speaker of inter
national fame, and although bis reasonings
may not always be sound or his views
practical. whatever he says he says well
and pointedly. Pronounced Socialists and
leading candidates upon the Labor ticket
including Mr.. Nelson were present and &C.
cupied prominent places upon the stage.
The galleries we're crowded and a great
many ladies were present. With these
stimulating auxiliaries at hand it will be
taken for granted that Mr.. George put for
ward his best foot and made ono OF his
most telling efforts. The gentleman opened
his discourse by saying:
81 propose to speak tonight upon the
greatest Of all great ~questions-tbe labor
question. 1t il one which the world over
assumes a more and more menacing form,
beside which all other questions sink into
insignificance. Nor is it a class question.
1t is one that concerns all who put muscle
or brains into the strife for earning their
daily bread" This was the Introductory
remark OF the subject matter, and it was
greeted with great applause. Mr.. George
said, among other things, that il the labor
question could not be satisfactorily set
tied u civilization would be doomed.
But the great social problem could not be
solved by shouting or fighting, nor could
it be done by electing one or another set OF
men to Office.
Then the speaker propounded the ques-
ton" What is the labor question ?" This
he proceeded to answer by saying that very
little attention had been given to the mat !
ter. Some was being paid to it just now.
Some rich men occupied leisure hours in |
seeking what they did not want to find. |
The labor question was simply one OF too
hands and too little work. Ave,
some would say, here is the Malthusian
theory. That theory, Mr.. George held, was
t"nable in a new country like this.
Why, Others would say, your view of the
labor question ia readily explained by over
production. "Isnot this" thespeaker said,
amid great applause, ian assertion that
want and suffering are here because there's
much wealth? So much food is pro-
duced that people have to go hungry; so
clothing is manufactured that people
must wear their old clothes; SO many shoes
are made that children must go b~arefooted.
absurd Does not all this CRY about
.overproduction resolve itself down to the
bare TACT that what we are suffering from IA
lRiust distribution" |,
Having thus briefly answered his own
he branches off into a discussion
ii the tariff. What is the tariff for?" in
luired Mr.. George. For the capitalists =?
IN, no; for the laboring man, so we are +;
old. TO prevent outsiders from doing
'ur work, and at present we are devising
neans to keep the foreigners out. Yet the
laborer has to lie idle and suffer :
lnder that very protective tariff" Recur- .
ing again to the cry of scarcity of work,
he speaker directly went to the land ques- {
ion. Old country monarchies, he said, :.
ppolnted Parliamentary commissions; :
re appoint Congressional committees to l
nut why there was not work enough. =
uppose it we're possible to send a commits .
ion to the high court of heaven and COM a
lain OF the want of work. Would cot the {
nswer be Are all your fields titled? Have
IL resources of nature been exhausted?
ertainly nature, or God, as he preferred !
call it, Mr.. George said, had created a q
OMAN that was inexhaustible. The g
'ult, then, must lie in man." u
Mr.. George then tool up the matter of Fl
the unjust distribution of property" a
le declared that in every great city the n
opulation OF an ordinary village was u
ten crowded into one block, while the Ct
hole great West had thousands of miles 81
~unproductive property, and yet people b
ere clamoring for homes. Here, Mr.. tt
gorge claimed, was the very heart of the tt
Dor question. W
Coming back to a discussion OF the labor
I'd land question the speaker insisted 1.-THE
question was not one thing and this 70
Dor question another. One could not ca
the latter without coming right ca
'wn to the other. OF course there were st
any other things wrong in society, but all CO
gether were OF not so much Importance al
the one of land monopoly. At the root al
all the misery and squalor OF today, Be
mt in the midst OF our centers Of civil HI
ton. there must be an injustice, and that st,
ustice was the disinheritance of our chill wi
m. Truly, Thomas Jefferson spoke oil ad
F-evident truth. That truth was that pu
land belonged to the living and not to for
dead. There never was Q man who thu